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With today’s headlines filled with tension between countries, a book featuring a naval battle delivers an all-to-real look at what could happen.

Author Thomas M. Wing demonstrates his knowledge of nautical warfare in Against All Enemies. It’s a fast-paced thriller packed with grit and action as one American ship serves as the sole outside resource when the United States is attacked by the People’s Republic of China.

Navy Commander Bill Wilkins serves as a solid main character faced with challenging decisions. Because his ship is cut off from home, he has no idea that the nation’s political climate is crumbling under the attacks. With Russia gearing up to take advantage, it falls on Bill to seek out allies.

The battles fought at sea are vastly different, relying significantly on technology to intercept threats. When a Chinese frigate starts firing at Bill’s ship, there is a moment of humor that actual bullets are being used.

Against All Enemies displays an exceptionally crafted techno-thriller that will hold your attention from start to finish.

Against All Enemies

By Thomas M. Wing

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Military

Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

This action-packed naval thriller comes ominously close to reality in imagining the events leading up to, and into, a third world war.

"The ship shuddered out of rhythm with the gun. In

eighteen years of naval service, he'd never heard nor felt something like it."

Captain Bill Wilkins is among the first Americans to realize what is going on when a Chinese frigate opens fire on his destroyer in the South China Sea. Unbeknownst to him, his older brother has already been killed in a massive bombing campaign on San Diego's military installation. Tracking Captain Wilkins and a large cast of characters as they respond to unprecedented destruction, the novel moves from war zones to the boardroom machinations playing out in Washington and Moscow. Action and political intrigue are woven into a taught story that equally draws from world-domination strategy games and blockbuster war films.

Wing's first-hand experience in naval combat and decades of service as a Navy Surface Warfare officer are on full-display in immersive combat scenes that lean into the technical language and detail of real-world fighting. The combination of chaos and calm that unfolds in the command center of a naval destroyer fighting for its life is captured with uncanny reality. The compartmentalization and decentralization of each military role on a ship creates enormous efficiency while leaving the captain as a mere figurehead, suddenly "feeling useless" in the heat of battle. These clear, authentic description of modern warfare practices are thrilling. An eerie depiction of the contemporary world sliding from an imaginable military conflagration to war of an unimaginable scale, Against All Enemies is a thrilling exercise in political prophesy.

When the People’s Republic of China unleashes a devastating attack on the United States, Navy destroyer Commander Bill Wilkins and

his crew are suddenly alone, deep in the enemy’s backyard, and unable to communicate with naval or national leadership.

At home in Washington, the president is detached from reality. Survivors of his cabinet contend with military leadership for control, some to save the nation they serve, others in pursuit of personal power. As America becomes alienated from its allies, Russia begins a campaign that
creates heightened fear of nuclear annihilation.

Bill must navigate a political minefield to find friends among China’s neighbors, in a role that asks him to take unimaginable risks and wrestle with the question: What losses are acceptable in order to win?

TESTimoniaL

Building on the tradition of long-established writers of nautical thrillers such as PT Deutermann and David Poyer, Tom Wing has crafted a naval thriller that grips the reader and never lets go. As only an insider can, he has painted an authentic picture of modern surface warfare that the men and women aboard U.S. Navy ships will likely face in an era of peer competition. While some thriller writers craft stories that border on science fiction, Against All Enemies paints a scenario that is not only possible, but probable, making this novel eerily prescient. Not confined to the world’s oceans, this book delves into the political intrigue spawned by war and takes the reader to political machinations in Washington, Beijing and Moscow. Against All Enemies is a tour de force that will not only entertain, but inform.

- George Galdorisi, Retired Naval Aviator and Author